Jaci Dawn

Poor Harvey. His little neutering surgery left him swollen & bruised. He is on antibiotics and pain meds for the next 7 days in an attempt to reduce the swelling, get him past possible infection and relieve the obvious pain he doesn’t know he is in (did I ever mention bird dogs are rather stupid when it comes to pain? They are).

The vet told me to put ice packs on his scrotum if he will allow me. Yeah, just what *I* want to do with my free time! (Don’t ask what my husband said, it wasn’t pretty.) Anyway, now that you are done blowing liquid out your nostrils: Harvey doesn’t mind the ice pack. He’s very good. For ten minutes. He just lays still. But right at ten minutes, he’s done with ice. That’s OK: ten minutes is all it takes. We hope.

I really want Harvey to be a well-behaved dog. I want him to sit or lay down on command and stay there, not beg in the kitchen when I am cooking or drool on my plate when I am eating, and especially to not pull on the leash when we are walking. I am making him wait to go out doors (I get to go first) and I am making him wait before bolting out of his crate or his kennel when it is FREEDOM time. Sometimes all we get is a couple seconds’ pause, but it’s a pause.

We’re in this for the long haul and when I am finished, I want a good all-around dog that listens when I speak and does what he is told (for the most part, understanding that dogs are not perfect).

I’ve seen some improvement already, but the most gratifying aspect has been his reaction when I come home from work. He wags his entire body! Yup, folks, Harvey is bonding with me. And I am with him.

He has one very serious behaviour issue that I can only touch on right now. Be cause of his surgery, we have had to keep the big dogs apart for the most part: no rough housing or dominance-setting “spats.” It’s hard: Murphy (Don’s 80# dog) wants to PLAY NOW and Harvey has been over-sexed and wants to mount Murphy. We can’t let them get close enough to deal with the issue (but it has happened & I’ve taken the end of the leash to Harvey when he does it).

This issue really ticks me off. Not at Harvey, but at his former “owners”. Maybe they thought they would use him for breeding (although I think he is show quality, not field quality and I have a certain aversion to people breeding bird dogs just for “show”. I owned one of those once, and she was a useless Idiot. Loved her to pieces, but the Smart had been bred out of her. Sad). I don’t know what the former owners thought, if they thought at all. They allowed a beautiful, smart dog to learn some very bad & destructive habits and they didn’t bother to keep him restrained properly or to fully teach him some basic doggie manners.

The mounting thing is a dominant/aggressive act. It is more unacceptable than most of what old Murphy has ever done (including using my sofa as a trampoline).  In this house, Murphy should be King, but if the dogs sort it out in a different order down the road, so be it. But not this way. Growling & sparring are a far better option.

Oh, yeah… Harvey has been allowed on furniture. DRAT. But he’s usually pretty good about not using the sofa as a trampoline. So far.

Anyway… Anyone with ideas? I’m open to humane lessons (given that Harvey gets past this swollen scrotum thing that’s going on right now and we can turn the pair loose to play rough. I don’t know if Murphy will be aggressive enough to knock Harvey on his *ss. He hasn’t tried so far.

(And I thought Murphy had to be the top of the heap. Maybe not…?)

Thank you!!!